Opening of the Next Presidential Contest.

The contest of the next Presidency may now be said to be fairly opened in Congress—in the newspaper press—in public meetings—and throughout the whole country, as far as we have heard from as yet. The nominations of both parties are before the people, and during the next four or five months the discussion must go on, and public meetings must be held on both sides, and the popular mind be canvassed, in order to prepare all for voting at the election next fall.

According to all appearances, this contest will be one of the most spirited—one of the most equally matched—and one of the most curious that has taken place in this country for a great many years. We have seen the unanimity and enthusiasm and impulse which have animated the Whigs up to the nomination of Mr. Clay, and which continue to preserve them in an unbroken phalanx. This unanimity gave them a manifest superiority over their opponents, the democratic party, until the latter made the nominations at Baltimore, and the people began to indicate their views on that nomination, all over the country. It is very evident now, since the nominations of Polk and Dallas, that all the dissensions and disturbances which have agitated that party for the last two years, will be completely lulled in a few weeks, and that they will present a more united front and a more determined spirit than any one had reason to expect, . . .

. . .

In this contest, we already perceive that the people of the United States will be divided into two great and powerful factions. A third party will not be heard of. Captain Tyler is as effectually covered with the waters of oblivion as Joe Smith, in relation to the contest for the Presidency. We do not believe that even the abolition candidate, Mr. Birney, will receive so many votes in the free States as his party have polled during the last two or three years; for it is generally believed that the odor of sanctity which floats around Mr. Frelinghuysen, and the great aid which he has rendered to the abolition of slavery, will concentrate in the whig ticket all the sensible forces of the abolition party in the free States. We shall, therefore, have a more equal division of the people of this country, in the ensuing contest, than has probably ever taken place since the great contests between Jefferson and Adams, and some of their immediate successors.

. . .